Clothes

[bassnation]

oh i'm being a total fascist and it's more or less for my own benefit don't worry :

ha ha! don't worry - i'm not going to say which ones i transgressed just in case people start constructing some unfortunate mental images

 

[Guybrush]

Here are my guidelines:

* Visible logos are always wrong; text-prints can work, but should generally be avoided.

* If you have a bad sense of fashion (you probably have--ask your ex-girlfriend) stick to the colours black, dark blue, dark grey, and white (black is the indisputed king of colours, but the others can make for a little variation).
Cautionary example:

* Make sure that your clothes are as tight as is comfortably possible, this especially applies if you are slightly overweight--don't hide that love paunch away!
Cautionary example:

Much better:

* Don't wear a hoodie unless you're under twenty or exercising.
Cautionary example:

* Your safest bet if you want to look timelessly stylish would probably be something like this...

...but without the tie.

 

[don_quixote]

yes, i like the collar/sweater combination, but i do feel like a bit of a tosser when i wear that, or a bit like the aforementioned geography teacher. perhaps i should embrace it.

then again, i adore my dm's. i dont care who else wears them, as long as they look smart and haven't been ruined by too many dirty pubs then i really really like the shape of them and the durability.

but then i never find myself spending much money at all on clothes. i'd rather rummage around charity shops so that i can spend more on music and film.

 

[swears]

I think a formal, preppy, clean-cut look will be the next big thing in fashion, people are eventually going to react against the gaudiness of contemporary clothes.
The really hip people will embrace a certain perverse squareness.

 

[tatarsky]

I tend to swing violently from looking like I'm wearing clothes that my mum bought me about 8 years ago (which, unfortunately, may be the case in a few instances), to looking pretty damn dapper (or at least, i like to think so...). I've a damn fine suit - black with subtle red pinstripe, which I adore. Set off with a decent red shirt (brings out the pinstripe, see). I used to wear it all with a trilby, but then Topshop started selling them, and every cunt was wearing one.

Totally agree about clothes having to FIT. Which is half the battle, often. Zara do well by me, being the skinny runt of a man that I am. They're good at rotating their offering too, unlike some places.

I dream of a day when I can have a tidy wardrobe of immaculately pressed suits and shirts, and discard all the tatty t-shirts and jeans. I fear it might go all a bit Patrick Bateman tho.

 

[bruno]

this thread is hilarious!

i never think about clothes, probably should though as i've become a shit dresser.

i've cut my own hair since age 16 and used to fix my own clothes with mum's sewing machine until i ran out of the rugged 70s german trousers they used to have in secondhand shops here.

mum (against my will) made me a nice sort of cardiganish thing last year which is beautiful, sister knitted me an alpaca scarf which i can wrap around my head several times to look like a bedouin, which is also very nice. aside from all this i wear jeans and plain white shirts, the combination of which makes me look a bit nazi.

what this says about me, i don't know!

 

[Ness Rowlah]

Excellent and at times hilarious thread. I dress like shit as well in trainers (Puma since I was a teen) and jeans, and I guess I could do much better.
Just want to add a couple of quotes. From Mick Farren's "Give the Anarchist a Cigarette"

They [up-the workers Left] seemed totally unaware of the great tradition of the English working class dandy. The wideboys of the Forties, like Pinkie in Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, the teds of the Fifties and the mods of the Sixties were all progressive versions of what George Orwell described as "young men trying to brighten their lives by looking like film stars" and George Melly later called "revolt into style".

...

Devoting time and space to the clothes we wore may seem shallow and facile, and all the care and planning that went into how we presented ourselves nothing more than self-indulgent narcissism. My only response is "Think again, pilgrim". The use of dress for self-definition is the most instant and obvious means of protest available to an individual.

Then there's a long sequence on clothing and politics (hippies, bare-breasted women of the French revloution, the leathers of the Black Panthers and so on). And then on meeting John Lydon at The Roxy:

The [Farren's] jeans did however have a slight flair, just enough to make them hang correctly over my cowboy boots. Rotten said nothing, but just stooped them and measured the offending flair with his thumb and forefinger, then looked up at me and shook his head ... A man's loyalties, antecedents and social pedigree will ever be judged by the cuff and cut of his pants.

And Grayson Perry

It was all gloriously amateurish and heartfelt, a mass outsider art that smelt genuinely fresh, like teen spirit I imagine. I was part of the venerable youthnic lineage of teddy boys, mods, rockers and skinheads. After punk I raided charity shops and the make-up box and the pouting panto that was New Romanticism minced into view under the beguiled gaze of a new sort of media.

…

I can’t remember when it was that I started to miss seeing flamboyantly attired youngsters on our own streets. Maybe it was the circles I used to move in, but I remember encountering on a regular basis people rigged out so as to provoke tirades from every building site or passing van. Nowadays I rarely see anyone dressed to excess in the streets. It’s just a dispiriting parade of sportswear worn for CCTV and the lowest common denominator fashion dictated by Heat magazine.

If fashion is a street-level manifestation of what’s going on in society, the only counter in this culture is at Topshop.

 

[benjybars]

hahah.. love this thread!

Basically, i LOVE clothes and think about them a LOT! however, this worries me quite a bit.. surely someone who thinks about clothes as much as me is a shallow and useless human being...

The thing i'm really looking forward to is being 60 and wearing really crazy stuff and not giving a shit cos everyone will have to allow me as i'm really old. I'm really gonna take advantage of that!

 

[mms]

Does anyone else find the selection of men's clothes in the UK almost supernaturally shit? H&M's clothes may be of ultimately poor quality, but at least some of their stuff has panache. The other high street stores are just depressing (even Zara has turned to absolute shite over the past couple of years).

Spanish men's fashion is the way forward tho, I reckon.

i bought a very good shirt in Spain but i got a beer stain on it and it's a weird one as i've never ever been able to get it out.
I think clothes in tht self cleaning material that is used to clean specs lens would be the ideal material for my clothes as i manage to cover them in so much crap.

how do people feel about hats?

 

[Lichen]

Proper (trilby, fedora et al) hats are very hard to pull off until you reach a certain age.

The freedom to wear one is one of the few advantages of senior citizenship.

Having said that I live in a rural spot and find a tweed cap very useful against the elements.


BTW: jersey and shirt collar: the only real choice for a man over 30 or so. Good cashmere repays the investement many times over. Agnes B shirts are crisp, very well made and pleasantly fitted.


!

 

[benjybars]

Proper (trilby, fedora et al) hats are very hard to pull off until you reach a certain age.

The freedom to wear one is one of the few advantages of senior citizenship.

too true! i attempted a trilby when i was around 18.. it was a huge, pretentious mistake!

but yeah, you're right about the senoir citizenship thing... you can literally wear what you like and no-one's allowed to tell you shit! i saw a pensioner in a wu-tang sweatshirt the other day.. i kid you not

 

[mms]

too true! i attempted a trilby when i was around 18.. it was a huge, pretentious mistake!

but yeah, you're right about the senoir citizenship thing... you can literally wear what you like and no-one's allowed to tell you shit! i saw a pensioner in a wu-tang sweatshirt the other day.. i kid you not

yes it's a rare person who can carry off a trilby without looking like a complete monkey under 55.

My dad wears alot of flat caps, he's in his 60's though, he went through an odd deerstalker period, he used to look quite groovy in the 80's, a picture of him on holiday with black shades and an all white suit is one of my faves, like an overweight slightly passed it miami vice, on holiday in greece.

 

[STN]

I used to have this tweedy trilby (or was it a pork-pie hat) which I would sport with a waterproof adidas semi-zip-up pullover thing from the 80s. I don't think I looked that much of a dick but maybe I should post a photo and allow you to dismantle this delusion.

 

[Lichen]

. I don't think I looked that much of a dick

That's the thing, though. Of course you didn't think you looked like a dick; people never do. Like you say, post the photo and let the public decide.

 

[bassnation]

That's the thing, though. Of course you didn't think you looked like a dick; people never do. Like you say, post the photo and let the public decide.

well, ultimately the yardstick should be whether the opposite (or same) sex find you attractive - who cares about other peoples opinions if they don't fall into that scope?

 

[STN]

But I still don't, in the cold light of hindsight, think I looked that much of a dick, and I'll happily admit that I've spent at least 70% of my life looking like an absolute knob. I will try to find a picture.

The thing is, a large part of me thinks there's something rather noble about a really fucking stupid hat.

 

[tatarsky]

well, ultimately the yardstick should be whether the opposite (or same) sex find you attractive - who cares about other peoples opinions if they don't fall into that scope?

Unfortunately, I don't think I've got any photographic evidence of my trilby wearing antics, but I can assure you that it met with much approval with the laydeez. Worked a treat actually, a great conversation starter, with girls often stealing it for themselves to wear while you dance together.

I had a well worn flat cap at one point. Again, Topshop have made them irritatingly prevalent.

I wonder if part of the lack of decent fashion is to do with the marketing strategies of the high street stores now. Aparently they have people that just wander around Hoxton looking for anyone wearing something slightly unusual, and them produce a boiled down everyman version of their ideas, totally ruining the poor hipster's schtick.

 

[bassnation]

Unfortunately, I don't think I've got any photographic evidence of my trilby wearing antics, but I can assure you that it met with much approval with the laydeez. Worked a treat actually, a great conversation starter, with girls often stealing it for themselves to wear while you dance together.

i've never worn a trilby, but as a teenager in south wales during the eighties there was a brief trend of wearing those old mens flat caps, working mens club style. not sure if these are the same as the ones you wore? at the time obviously i thought i looked the bollocks, but remember this was also the time of stone washed jeans tucked into leather boots (or plastic slip on shoes, with tassels), topped off with a cream and yellow body warmer.

luckily like you, i don't have photos. the laydeez bothering me at that point in time wasn't really an issue - not that womens fashion was any better (iirc black skirts, lacy white tops and curly perms). the poorer towns tended to be infested with metallers (which of course, is a fashion of its own) or people walking round with halfmast trousers and jackets with holes with stuffing coming out.

it used to take a long time for fashions to travel down there. in the eighties we still had sid vicious style punks. curiously these days the gap seems to have shortened with trends travelling much faster (not just with clothing, but also with drugs - cocaine in particular was unheard of, and now sadly the place is awash with it, like everywhere) - not sure why that is, but it does lend a curiously homogenous look to most places through the uk.

actually might be interesting to ask - whats the worst clothes people have ever worn? something you look back and cringe about. images are optional

 

[bassnation]

I wonder if part of the lack of decent fashion is to do with the marketing strategies of the high street stores now. Aparently they have people that just wander around Hoxton looking for anyone wearing something slightly unusual, and them produce a boiled down everyman version of their ideas, totally ruining the poor hipster's schtick.

you can get good stuff from some chain stores, but it bothers me that millions of other people are probably wearing it. also stuff like topman, i find to be a bit young for me - nothing fits me (i'm not morbidly obese, but neither am i skinny like a 20 year old) plus its got what i consider to be wildly inappropriate logos concerning the supposed sexual habits of the wearer. not really the kind of thing you want to wear at 36, or indeed any age if you have any taste.

talking of which, i saw a bloke get turned away from a restuarant the other day as he had a t-shirt which had some kind of "humorous" text about blow jobs. call me a prude, but i just don't think its right to expose people to that.

 

[DJ PIMP]

My current fave is a second-hand muted-green Griffin wool zip-up jacket with mini faux-hood bubble. Label at the bottom reads "to get ahead, get a horse", while at the top the washing instructions state "take a hippy to lunch".

Previous fave was the nerdy Marc Newson cockpit hoody, which I would expect to be lambasted for.
http://www.baggamenswear.co.uk/acatalog/G-star_Hoody__8597-384-251_.html

Been a big fan of particular brands of grampa cardies for a while. Recently surpassed with a vintage white zip-up bowling jacket. It is pristine and synthetic. Like wearing artificial snow.

Mostly jeans and tees. Freely admit to dressing for shit/comfort.